In Minnesota, GOP has momentum to win, Paul Ryan says

In the final 48 hours of a fiercely fought presidential election, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan swept into the Twin Cities on Sunday, Nov. 4, to tell the party faithful that the GOP ticket has a realistic shot at winning Minnesota for the first time in 40 years.

"Minnesota, work with us; join with us. Together we can do this," Ryan told a crowd of about 8,000 packed into a Sun Country Airlines hangar at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and an overflow audience of about 2,000 listening to loudspeakers outside the building.

The Wisconsin congressman's first major campaign appearance in Minnesota was intended to convince Republicans they can carry the Democratic stronghold with a strong final push.

The excited crowd chanted "two more days" and waved "Minnesota believes" signs as Ryan arrived on the Romney campaign's "Believe in America" jet.

GOP Rep. John Kline said he hasn't seen rank-and-file Minnesota Republicans so excited about the possibility of a presidential win here in years. They have flooded the party's phone banks in recent days to turn out voters, he said.

"They believe it. They can taste it," Kline said. "Minnesota is in the hunt."

Ryan told the crowd they have a clear choice to make Tuesday. He ticked off a litany of what he called President Barack Obama's failures -- a soaring national debt, high unemployment, rising poverty rates and college graduates who can't find jobs in their chosen fields.

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"We cannot handle four more years of this," the Janesville, Wis., Republican said. "We only need two more days of this."

By contrast, he said, he and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are "offering real solutions and real reforms for a real recovery."

As Ryan spoke at the airport, former President Bill Clinton was preparing to campaign for the Democratic ticket in St. Cloud, and state DFL leaders were making get-out-the-vote pitches during a bus tour across northern Minnesota.

"The Romney campaign has found itself with a tremendously narrow and improbable path to 270 electoral votes, so they are desperately trying to find a path through states like Minnesota," Obama campaign spokeswoman Kristin Sosanie said in an email. "But the problem is, it doesn't exist. While we have been building a broad and deep grass-roots organization for 14 months, the Romney campaign has had virtually no presence in the state, with today's visit by Paul Ryan being the first public event they've held in Minnesota in eight months."

The Ryan rally came after a week when national Republican groups supporting Romney poured nearly $3 million into television advertising in the state. The sudden uptick in campaign ads "tells me both sides know it's close," said state Republican Party Chairman Pat Shortridge.

While the Obama campaign has a much larger voter-turnout operation here, Shortridge said Republicans are benefiting from an "intensity gap."

"Our folks are more certain and more enthusiastic about voting for our ticket," Shortridge said. "We're peaking at the right time."

Kelly Fenton, the state GOP deputy chair, said the party was deluged with requests for tickets after Ryan's visit was announced Friday.

Minnesota has voted Democratic in nine straight presidential elections, the longest streak in the nation. But Fenton said Republicans in 2010 flipped the Legislature to GOP control for the first time in 38 years, "and we feel we can make change happen again this year."

She predicted Ryan's visit would generate a huge boost in energy and enthusiasm among Republican voters and volunteers.